news and reports, forecasts, and reviews from a specific industry or profession

may provide highly specialized information and statistics

frequently used in areas like business and law

Conference proceedings are oral presentations, posters and papers on a specific topic, often related to a professional or personal interest association. Conference proceedings are often schoalrly in nature, but not always. It is common for research results to be in-progress or not yet completed. As they are not published in traditionally scholarly means, we call this type of resource "grey literature".

Briefly discusses or explains a study or research, does not go in depth

Covers news and general interest topics

No bibliography or citation

Examples: New York Times, People, The Economist

Peer Review

Trade Publications / Experts

A sober second look

Expert findings and research evaluated in a review process

Covers methodology and theory of research projects

Useful for most academic areas

Not always found in fields like Business, Education, Law

Includes: citation, references, bibliography

No advertisements and few images

Audience: members of a specific business, industry or organization

Authored by experts, staff writers and journalists

Expert practitioner findings considered scholarly in some disciplines

Highlights industry trends, new products, organizational news

Usually includes editorial review

May have short bibliographies

You may be asked to consult a peer-reviewed journal or use refereed papers for your assignments. Not all scholarly journals participate in a peer-review process, which is a way publishers ensure articles meet the standards of their journal. A peer reviewed paper is submitted and a panel of experts (often calls go out to individuals in the field) read and critique the piece. Any suggestions, errors, omissions or problematic aspects identified by the reviewers are provided in comments to the authors and a paper is either rejected, accepted, or accepted with revisions. To avoid bias, peer-review is done best in a blinded way so that both the author and the peer-reviewers have their personal and institutional information stripped so that it is unknown who either party is.

To determine if a journal participates in peer-review, check the "About" or "Information for Authors" sections where that will be explained. It is common for peer-reviewed journals to have certain categories where peer-review occurs (research and review papers ets), and others (like letters, opinion, product summaries etc) where it doesn't. You can also use the Ulrich database to get a quick sense as to whether a journal is refereed.